Never
by PinkRhino
Summary: "This is the four-to-five o' clock wedge of the arena..." she sighs, so quietly I wonder if she even meant to say it out loud. "We're stuck in here for an hour." - Finnick's POV of the jabberjay scene in Catching Fire. Written for an English assignment. One-shot.


_Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, storyline, or even many (most) of the lines of dialogue._

"Katniss," I snap my fingers in front of her face a few times, but she's still lost in her thoughts. I feel a smile tug at the corners of my lips and I say, "Katniss, got that spile?" She jumps, and I know this is probably the first time she's noticed I'm still here. She studies me for a moment before nodding and cutting the vine that holds the spile to her belt. Just as my fingers brush the metal of the tube, we hear the first scream.

At first I think it might be Johanna, but it's coming from the wrong direction, and really, she's with Peeta. She's got an _axe, _and he's still weak, even with his weight advantage on her. It's really unlikely that it's her. As soon as Katniss starts running, I dismiss it completely, though. She wouldn't care if it was Johanna; she must recognize the scream from somewhere else. In fact...I think I might recognize it, for a moment. She had dropped the spile when she sprinted away and I'm off, running after her, too soon to think about picking it up again. I call her name but she's already far ahead of me, and so I run after her. In this arena, there's no way we can risk losing track of her.

When I finally find her, the scream has been silenced and I see her throwing something into the jungle. I wonder for a moment what it was, and I think to ask her, but I don't need to, because I've put two and two together on my own. A jabberjay. She's cleaning off the arrow she used to kill it and I think I can see tears in her eyes. It's odd, seeing her cry. She's usually so hostile and high-strung that some might believe she never formed tear glands as an infant.

"Katniss?" I finally say, taking a step into the clearing. She looks up at me and wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand, dropping her arrow back into the quiver slung over her back.

"I'm okay." She sighs, her head dropping into her hands. She isn't okay. "I'm okay... I thought I heard my sister, but -" She's cut off by another scream. It takes me a moment to realize I know this one; it's the scream I've heard so many times in the nights, that's woken me up and brought me to a state of panic in which I can't fall asleep again for ages. The scream I dread most hearing. The scream I heard on the Quell reaping day, when they didn't give us time to say goodbye to our loved ones.

The scream that belongs to Annie.

This time I'm the one running, crashing through the brush, ignoring the sharp branches raking across my face. The only thing that's important is to find her, just like in any situation. The world could be falling apart, and still my first priority would be to to make certain that she's all right. I think I hear Katniss yelling at me, but it's distant, and I can disregard it easily. I can't even think straight enough to realize I should be rationalizing the situation and asking myself the most obvious question: _why is Annie in the arena?_

I'm right under the shriek now. It's coming from a _tree_, of all things. Annie can't climb trees...

I circle the tree trunk, craning my neck to see up to the branches. They don't start until at least twenty feet up, and again, I wonder how _anyone _could be up that high, much less her.

"Annie?" I call. It's more of a question than anything. The screams had died down a little until I say her name; they pick up again after that and I flinch, grabbing the knife from my belt. I stab it into the bark cutting a foothold and wedge my foot in, thrusting the knife into the bark higher up to pull myself up. The knife slips and I fall back to the ground, stumbling a little when I lose my footing.

I must call her name a thousand times before, out of nowhere, comes an arrow, shot like a pro as usual. Another jabberjay comes plummeting to the ground, landing at my feet. I should've known, especially after the last one, but hearing that scream... I shake my head, trying to diminish the lasting feelings about the matter.

Not wanting to touch the bird, I close my fist around the end of the arrow, lifting it with a grimace. Out of my peripheral vision I see Katniss drop out of a different tree and she slowly approaches me.

_It was just a jabberjay,_ I think to myself. Just a bird. Just a mutt. Only a part of the Games. As hard as I try to convince myself, it's impossible to, and suddenly, an awful thought comes to me. If jabberjays mimic what they hear, and they were mimicking Annie's scream... I try to tell myself that not even the Capitol would be that awful, that cruel. I can't do it. It's too close to something they _would _do.

Katniss pulls the arrow from the bird and it drops back to the ground. I take a step back from it, still almost scared to touch it. Like it would erupt in her screams again if I did. "It's all right, Finnick." She says, clapping a hand over my shoulder. For my benefit she kicks the carcass a few feet away into the underbrush and continues reassuringly, "It's just a jabberjay. They're playing a trick on us." I want to add that it's a nasty, dirty trick, but she proceeds too quickly. "It's not real. It's not your..." she pauses for a moment, meeting my eyes. "Annie." Of course, I already know that.

"No," I agree, nodding, and she looks at me funny, as if she'd been expecting me to argue. "It's not Annie. But the voice was hers." I repeat my theory to her. "Where did they get those screams, Katniss?"

The moment I say that, her face falls and I see with relief that my thoughts make sense to someone other than myself. She meets my eyes and she gapes, just a little. "Oh, Finnick," her voice is just a whisper. "you don't think they..." she trails off. I don't need her to finish because I know we're thinking the exact same thing now, and I nod, setting my jaw.

"Yes. I do. That's exactly what I think." I think of Annie – sweet, giggly, dependent little Annie. How broken she is because of the Games; how everyone knows she won't ever be the same as she was. How she never believes me when I tell her I love her. How, despite all of her flaws, all of her imperfections...I still care about her life more than my own. And thinking about her, captured and tortured by the Capitol, screaming her heart out for someone to help her...

Katniss sinks to her knees as if her legs have turned to jelly. I don't know how I've evaded the same situation, with all those thoughts going through my head. Her hands clutch her hair as if she'll rip it out by the roots in another few moments. In her eyes is a look of panic and I stoop down beside her, carefully prying her hands from her scalp. She doesn't seem to notice. "Katniss," I say, quiet and calm, trying to get through to her. "We should go back and find the others before they start to worry." She's still so consumed in her thoughts that she doesn't seem to hear me at all and she doesn't budge. "Katniss." I say again, and I stand. I'm still holding her arm and it lifts with me, but the rest of her stays huddled on the ground. Finally I take her other arm and pull her into a standing position and she seems to come to a little, her eyes focusing on a point in the sky. I've let go of her arms already.

It all happens in a moment. The jabberjay she's looking at starts screaming – a boy's voice this time – and I grab her arm before she can run, hanging on tight. She yells a name, almost subconsciously, and I shake my head. "No." I tell her firmly, beginning to pull her back toward the beach, where Peeta, Johanna, and Beetee are waiting, no doubt wondering about us. "It's not him. We're getting out of here." I hurry along as quickly as I can, but she's strong, too, and it isn't easy when she's putting all of her weight into getting back to that bird. She keeps struggling, and I finally resort to yelling at her. "It's not him, Katniss! It's a mutt! Come _on_!" I catch her around the waist and pull her away from the clearing, understanding her anguish, what with hearing Annie's scream myself. At the same time, though, it's irritating, because she's digging her fingernails into my upper arm, breaking the skin, even, trying to get me to let her go.

Finally, she stops fighting and I keep pulling her along, half-carrying her, to the beach. I know that getting away from the jabberjays is the only way to make it better – chasing down and killing them won't do a thing, because the one we kill will only be replaced with another. When we finally see the others, I can feel Katniss's confusion. Peeta is standing only five feet away, his hands pressed against the air as if there's some sort of invisible wall –

_Whack!_

_ ..._And that would be the invisible wall.

Katniss is up again right after we were pushed away, rubbing her shoulder with a wince. My nose is gushing blood and I plug it, tipping my head forward. Peeta's hands are still pressed up to the wall and he's saying something, but it doesn't travel through the division, and it's almost as if he's just mouthing the words. Johanna looks like she's trying not to laugh at me and I roll my eyes at her, shrugging at Beetee, who's just behind her. She sobers up when I smack the wall. It makes a hollow _boom _and I look to her expectantly. She just shrugs, swinging her axe at the wall just above my head. I guess I should been glad it doesn't smash, because if it had, I'd be chopped in half, but as jabberjays begin to flutter into the encasement, I lift my hands to my ears, ignoring the fact that my nose is still bleeding. They haven't even begun screaming yet, but I know they will, and I'm ready. Katniss is standing on the opposite side of the barrier to Peeta, their hands pressed up together almost as if they're a mirror image. I almost smile, but it's difficult. Katniss drops her gaze, resting the top of her head against the wall, and I place one hand on her shoulders gently. I take my other hand away from my ears as she starts to say something.

"This is the four-to-five o' clock wedge of the arena..." she sighs, so quietly I wonder if she even meant to say it out loud. "We're stuck in here for an hour." Her arms drop to her sides limply and she moves away from the wall, giving Peeta one last despairing look before casting a glance around at the hundreds of jabberjays. She looks at me over at me, horrified, and they begin their chorus.

It's too awful. It's almost as if the Gamemakers have altered the birds so that we can only hear the screams we care about, or maybe it's just that those are the ones that stick out. Either way, Annie's voice is the one I hear the loudest, as if she's right up to my ear. I feel weak and I hunch on the ground, at first plugging my ears, but it isn't enough._ It isn't her. It isn't them. _I tell myself repeatedly. _They're just mutts. They aren't really here... _With my ears still covered, I curse and say, "An _hour _of this?" But Katniss has already given up trying to shoot them down. She's curled up beside me, sobs escaping her throat. I suddenly wish I could wrap an arm around her and we could both feel less alone, but I'm not going to risk taking my hands away from my ears. I clench my jaw until I frown, squeezing my eyes shut. My hands covering my ears seem to do little to keep the screams out, but when I take one hand away, just for an instant, I realize it's doing a lot of good. The screams are agonizingly loud, travelling easily through our hands. The transparent wall that separates us from the others does all the good in the world, I realize as I look back at them. Peeta's rested his forehead against the wall and his shoulders are shaking. Beetee has a hand on his shoulder, his spectacles sitting askew on his nose as usual. Johanna has dropped her axe to the ground and her arms are crossed over her chest. She stands just a bit off from Beetee and Peeta and her gaze is flicking back and forth from me to Katniss, her eyes clouded.

It feels like years before the screams finally begin to die down. I don't realize how much I must have been crying until I see Katniss. She's in Peeta's arms and he's carrying her back to the beach, and her eyes are red and puffy, her cheeks stained and blotchy. I pick myself up, rubbing my face, and I see Johanna hanging behind with me. She throws an arm around my shoulders best-buddy style and rests her cheek against my arm. I try to smile at her but it probably comes out more of a grimace and when we reach the sand, I collapse again, burying my face in my hands. I can hear Peeta whispering to Katniss, and when I look up again, I see Johanna watching them, a flicker of longing in her eyes.

My ears ache. Not just from the noise, but from being clenched for so long, too. I drag myself down to where the water meets the sand and I splash my face, rubbing my cheeks. "God." I whisper, washing the blood from under my nose. Katniss has finally begun to loosen up and is curled up in Peeta's lap, her head resting against his chest. I can't count how many times Annie and I have sat like that, when I try to calm her down enough to lull her back into sleep.

"Katniss," I hear Peeta say and I lean backward a bit, straining my ears to listen in. "Prim isn't dead. How could they kill Prim?" He goes on, reminding her of the interviews they do of friends and family back home in our districts when there are only eight tributes left. I want to cut in and tell him that Katniss has more than enough family and friends without Prim and it would be just as simple to do without her, but as if he's reading my mind, Beetee shakes his head at me, just a little, and I nod back. As Peeta continues I turn around and crawl back over to them. "It was a trick, Katniss." Peeta sighs, tracing little invisible circles on her shoulder with his fingertips. "A horrible one. But we're the only ones who can be hurt by it. We're the ones in the Games. Not them."

"You really believe that?" She asks him, her voice deathly quiet. Her eyes search his for just an instant and he gives her a tiny smile, cupping her cheek with one hand.

"I really do." He nods and Katniss looks over at me. With one glance I know we're thinking the same thing: Peeta knows how to use his words. He's persuasive. He can make anyone believe anything he wants. And even though I know he's being honest, Katniss knows perfectly well that he could just as easily be saying all of this to comfort her. I try not to look at her. The look in her eyes is contagious and I'm afraid that if I look at her for too long, I'll start to doubt Peeta's honesty, too. She asks me if I believe it and without hesitation I reply,

"It could be true." I shrug and look at Beetee. "I don't know. Could they do that, Beetee? Take someone's regular voice and make it..."

He cuts me off straight away, and it's almost as if I can see the tiny cogs and gears in his brilliant brain starting to turn and work this out. "Oh, yes." He nods quickly. "It's not even that difficult, Finnick." And then he tells me that even the children in District Three learn a similar method in _school._ I shiver at the thought and shake my head, looking at Katniss again, who's been listening to Beetee.

"Of course Peeta's right," Johanna interjects and I jump. She's been standing behind me and I've almost forgotten that she's still here. She notes that all of Panem loves Prim, and how much hate the Capitol would have if anything happened to the little girl. "If they really killed her like this, they'd probably have an uprising on their hands," she deadpans and I go to shut her up, but she continues without anything close to recognition or consideration of what she was blurting out. "Don't want that, do they? Whole country in rebellion? Wouldn't want _anything _like that!"

Everyone is dead silent and wide-eyed. Nobody ever dares to say anything like this in the Games – and if you do, everyone can assume you've got a death wish. The Capitol doesn't take these things lightly.

Breaking the silence again, Johanna begins to stalk off, mumbling something about getting water. Katniss catches her arm as she passes and Johanna whips around, tugging at her arm. Katniss doesn't let go, and says, "Don't go in there. The birds -" She stops herself as if remembering that the birds are long gone by now, but she still hangs tight to Johanna's arm.

With a half-hearted sneer, Johanna yanks her arm away. "They can't hurt me. I'm not like the rest of you." I want to stop her before she says it, but with one look at me she manages to wipe my mind of what I wanted to say. "There's no one left I love." I think I can see tears beginning to form in her eyes as she turns away again, bolting back into the trees. The pity in Katniss's eyes is evident and I'm glad that Johanna can't see it, or she might explode. Or worse.

I pick myself up and walk back down to the water, dipping my fingertips into the depths. They make ripples on the surface and I smile just a little, selfishly wishing Annie could be here to share the moment.

Behind me I can hear Peeta and Katniss begin to talk again. "Who did they use against Finnick?" Peeta asks. He says it quietly, as if he's hoping I won't hear, but frankly, I don't care if they discuss the matter. As long as I can listen.

"Somebody named Annie." Katniss murmurs back, and I feel as if my heart is being squeezed at the sound of her name spoken aloud. As they continue talking, I feel their gazes burn into my back, but I don't turn around. The feeling of the water is enough to bring me home; I don't need to remind myself that in the next twenty-four hours, any of us could be dead. That no matter what happens, we need to get Katniss out, because as much as even Johanna hates to say it, she's the most important piece of the upcoming rebellion.

I'm glad that even the Capitol doesn't have the power to read the tributes' minds.

When Johanna returns she sits next to me again on the surf, splashing me with water. A smile comes onto her lips and I almost make a smart remark about it, but it's such an unusual occurrence that I just splash her back and grin. "I hate you, Odair." She says, but she's still smiling and I shove her arm, chuckling softly.

"You didn't have to say it, you know." I mumble after a few minutes. She looks at me, her dark eyes meeting mine cautiously. "About everyone you love - "

She cuts me off with her usual scowl. "Shut up, Finnick." It isn't every day that she calls me by my first name, so I quiet down, knowing full well that it would only do more hurt to her for me to speak again.

"I'm serious, Jo." I don't expand on that and she doesn't expect me to. She just sighs and picks up a flat stone, skipping it across the water.

Eventually, she murmurs, "You don't know what you're talking about." I want to tell her that I actually do, and that she should know that because she told me all about what happened to her family, but I keep silent and let her vent. I'm not really listening, but I know she appreciates it when I let her say these sorts of things without interruption. Of course, I can't always respect that; sometimes I need to get my thoughts out, too.

"Do you think Annie's okay?" I ask her softly as she's halfway through saying something else. She pauses and frowns.

"Of course she is." I pull my knees up and hug them. When I don't say anything, she adds, "I'm not just saying it to make you feel better. You know I don't do that."

"I know."

"So believe me. Annie is fine. Nothing's happened to her."

"Still, how do I know you aren't lying to me?"

"Because I'm your best friend, you _idiot._" She replies. The way she says it, it's like she's trying to sound more mad at me than she really is. She doesn't fake it well at all. After a few minutes, she finally says something else. "I know it isn't easy."

"It's never going to be easy. Never." I sigh regrettably, shoving my hands through my hair exasperatedly. I look at her and she gives me a forced smile. Then she stands.

"I'm going to rest. Don't go insane without my incredible guidance." I know she means it in a joking manner, but I don't manage a laugh. Not even a smile. "Lighten up, Odair." She nudges my side with her foot and walks back up the beach, so quick that I don't get the chance to ask her how she proposes I _lighten up. _

Until Beetee suggests we go back to where we'd made camp the night before, I just sit there, thinking. Waiting for some kind of sign to tell me that Annie's okay, but I know it'll never come. That's the way the Capitol works: they get inside your head and slowly kill you from there on out. And somehow, they always know the exact what the best way to do that is. For Katniss, it's her sister. For Johanna, it's her memories in general. For me, it's no matter what I try to believe, I can't shake the thought that they might be hurting her, and the biggest problem is, that's what they want.

Katniss and Peeta offer to watch first, and I guess they think they're doing me some sort of favour, by letting me sleep, but they really aren't. I'm plagued by nightmares, but that's never unusual for me anymore. They're a nightly occurrence anyway. It's just that now, my nightmares are filled with jabberjays, screaming in Annie's voice, louder than they had been in person, and this time, covering my ears doesn't do a thing, because in the dream, they're inside my head. I don't wake up, though, I can't make myself. It isn't like it was in real life, because I can't escape this when the hour's through. I don't know how long it's been, because time always goes screwy in dreams, but it's been too long. I can't stand it. Usually, in nightmares, I end up dying somehow and I wake up just as I'm being stabbed, or shot with an arrow, or hung. But in this one, it's just like the real jabberjays. They won't kill me. They won't touch me, or even come close to me. But they'll somehow manage to break me, on the inside first, in the heart, because it's my foundation, and when that's broken, they'll have no trouble at all with what's left.

And that's just the way the Capitol itself works, too.

_A/N: Um...yeah. Written for an English assignment. Reviews are appreciated.  
_

_Oh, how I love Finnick...  
_


End file.
